What is a Resilient Livelihood? Also: DiY Community Security and “Lean” Dairy Farms.

Today’s letter starts with a discussion of what a resilient livelihood is, and why it is a good thing to have.

We’re also lucky to have a dispatch from our security correspondent Marcus Wynne on how the Burning Man (it’s a massive 50,000 person festival in the desert) handles security.

At the end of the letter is a very smart approach to building a “lean” dairy farm by F.W. Owen. I think being “lean” is essential to business resilience and your future success. It’s definitely worth a read.

How To Thrive: Build a Resilient Livelihood

Over the weekend in Aspen, I had some great discussions with young men and women looking for ways to build a better future for themselves. Naturally, since we live in the real world, the discussion eventually gravitated to the best ways to make a living in today’s rapidly changing environment.

In addition to specific recommendations that were unique to their circumstance, here’s one suggestion I had for them:

Don’t focus on a job, career, pension, government payment, or investment.

Instead, build yourself a resilient livelihood.

Here’s what a resilient livelihood is and why it is important.

A resilient livelihood is achieved by diversifying your income. To be resilient, you need to get your compensation from many small, and very different, sources. It’s also a livelihood where you aren’t dependent on any one source (customer, product, service, or category).

Here’s an example of a resilient livelihood from one of my favorite farmers, Sepp Holzer. Sepp sells 30-40 different products and generates a multi-million dollar income from his 40 hectare (hillside) farm. Sepp explains why this is good in his own words:

I have built ponds, terraces, and gardens, kept fish and wild cattle, I have grown mushrooms, set up an alternative tree nursery and so much more. Despite the fact that there are many different areas a farm can specialize in, it was important to me that I did not focus on any one source of income. I wanted to remain as flexible as possible, so that I would always be able to react to changing market conditions…. Over the years, this decision has been proven right again and again… Since then, I have been able to double the original size of the Krameterhof (his farm), whilst many of my critics have had to give up their farms….

The lesson here is that many small incomes from a diverse number of sources will allow you the flexibility to meet the needs of a rapidly changing or turbulent environment (farming is a very uncertain business, and Sepp was operating w/o the subsidies most farmers get).

It’s important to note that a resilient income is very different from a “robust” livelihood. A robust livelihood is income from a “safe” source or a small number of sources such as:

A big company. A job or a pension.

A government. A job, a pension, or a subsidy.

A financial portfolio. Hedged or in safe assets.

A robust income is pretty good at keeping you housed, fed, and clothed during normal times. However, in turbulent times, “safe” companies, governments, and financial systems can become just as vulnerable to failure as anything else.

This is a lesson that applies to communities too. We saw this with Braddock, PA and the catastrophic effects of its reliance on “safe” incomes from the steel industry.

How do you diversify your income to make it more resilient?

Explore things you can sell or do to make an income from a new source, even if you don’t need a new source of income right now. Try them out in the marketplace. Turn a hobby into a micro-business. Follow your passions and have fun.

I think you’ll be surprised by the results and you will be glad you did this in the future.

How Security at the Burning Man Works

How does an ad hoc security system work? Our security contributor Marcus Wynne did some investigation and has this report.

Problem: Resilient communities will require a resilient and innovative approach to security in an increasingly insecure environment.

Solution: Create a flexible approach to security management that supports and upholds the principles of resilience and sustainability while providing the necessary range of security to the community.

The Burning Man Festival held in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada is one of the largest intentional communities. It’s a temporary autonomous zone that, for nine days, constitutes one of the largest cities in NV with a population around 50,000.

Significant security issues for the Burning Man community:

Search and rescue. Finding and helping lost or extremely intoxicated people. Helping those overtaken by physical demands of the high desert.

Mediation of community conflicts. Usually drunken arguments to generator noise or out of control parties.

Liaison with local and federal law enforcement. Burning Man falls within the purview of federal, state, county and local law enforcement on legal enforcement issues.

In direct response to the issues, the Black Rock Community started the Black Rock Rangers, a volunteer organization that focused first on search and rescue, then conflict resolution/mediation, and then a buffer/moderator/mediator between “official” law enforcement and members of the Burning Man community.

PS: The Resilient Communities survey we sent out generated 30,000 words of response! Wow. Really amazing. There’s lots of passion in our community. I’m reading through all of it to make sure we do the best job we can with this letter. Thanks again.

PPS: If anyone has lived in a resilient community in the past and has lessons/insights and best practices to share, please send them to me. I’d love to share them with the rest of the community.

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